


Run Deep

by fallen_arazil



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Family, Fist Fights, Flawed characters, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-16 03:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16946055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_arazil/pseuds/fallen_arazil
Summary: Second Chapter Added[Canon-compliant pre-game backstory, set after John returns from his absence and exploring his reintegration into the gang.]"It weren't like that," He shot back. "I wasn't leaving. I just needed to get my head on straight, that's all.""Well did you?" Arthur asked, as he cracked his neck to the left, then the right. It was theater, a show for the gang around them. A signal that John Marston was going to get his, and Arthur Morgan was going to give it to him. "Because I gotta tell you, I'm about to knock it clean back off."





	1. Still Waters

**Author's Note:**

> This stands alone but may be expanded. It also may diverge from canon if expanded since I'm fond of queer outlaws and not that fond of Abigail. (Nothing against her, but in a game like this, the person who wants you, the player, to run off and play ranch simulator is kind of a buzzkill.)
> 
> Its been a while since I've written and this is therefore unbeta'd. Point out any typos and I will endeavor to correct them.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The hell is this, Arthur Morgan?" John demanded, all thought leaving him beyond the roiling in his gut, as he threw down Old Boy's reins to stalk towards the camp. "You're looking awful cozy with my _woman_ and my _son_."

He didn't recognize the voice of the camp lookout that called to him, but that wasn't necessarily a surprise. Dutch picked up new people like lice.

"It's John!" he replied anyway, an inadequate introduction if the feller was new, but maybe John resented having to explain himself.

"I don't know any 'John'!" The lookout yelled back, bringing up the barrel of his repeater.

"John?" Another voice, further away, repeated with an Irish lilt, and then Sean was there, lifting a lantern to shine right into his eyes. John winced away, cursing. "Holy shit, John Marston," Sean shoved the new feller's barrel down and turned him around by the shoulder. "Mac, go find Dutch."

The feller squinted at Sean in suspicion. "Who is this guy?"

Sean shoved at his shoulder. "Just go find Dutch. And Hosea. Tell 'em Marston's back."

John dismounted and grasped Old Boy's reins to follow Sean into the camp. He recognized Bill Williamson at the scout fire, along with another new face. He could hear raucous voices further into the camp drop to whispers, and then to silence, as he came in sight of the main fire. The new kid, Mac, was standing in Dutch's tent, next to the man himself, as Hosea appeared around the side of it at a jog. The women were all clustered 'round the fire, but Uncle and Pearson had gotten to their feat, hands open but eyes wary.

And there was Arthur Morgan, sitting casual as you please, knees akimbo, with Abigail's arm wound through his as she sat next to him at the fire. Jack was on the ground in front of him, seeming oblivious, building something out of sticks. Jack's hair was had darkened since John last saw him, now a dirty blonde similar to Arthur's. The three of them looked a proper family.

"The hell is this, Arthur Morgan?" John demanded, all thought leaving him beyond the roiling in his gut, as he threw down Old Boy's reins to stalk towards the camp. "You're looking awful cozy with my _woman_ and my _son_."

John had seen Arthur stand in the center of a road with nothing but a pistol and stare down an armed stagecoach. He'd seen him drag a child killer across a field by his hair and string him up on the nearest tree. He'd seen him kill with his bare hands a man who'd held a gun to Hosea's head.

He had never before seen the blank, cold fury that appeared in Arthur's eyes when they met his.

Still, Arthur's face didn't so much as twitch as he slowly reached up and took off his hat, laying it next to him on the log. "Well now, John Marston," he drawled as he stood, Abigail's hand trailing along his arm without letting go, "seems to me like _your_ woman and what you suddenly believe is _your_ son ain't seen your face in a year." He shook off Abigail's hand without a glance, and began rolling up the sleeve of his shirt in slow, deliberate movements.

John's gut turned to ice as his mind caught up with his mouth, and he fully grasped that, in about thirty seconds, Arthur was going to lay him flat.

"Now, the _law_ might call that abandonment," Arthur continued, switching to roll up his other sleeve, expression terrifyingly casual. "But we ain't much for the law, are we? Reckon we might call it something else."

"Arthur—" Abigail begged, grasping at his now-bare forearm, but Arthur just patted at her hand and then gently removed it.

"Why don't you take the boy and head to bed, Abigail," Arthur said, and Abigail only hesitated a moment before snatching up Jack as if they were brandishing guns instead of fists. Arthur and John stared silently, as if the only two people in the clearing, until they heard the sound of a tent flap flipping open, then brushing closed.

" _Traitor,"_ Arthur spat, and a brief susurration went through the group around them, even as John threw his shoulders back to stand his ground.

"It weren't like that," He shot back. "I wasn't leaving. I just needed to get my head on straight, that's all."

"Well did you?" Arthur asked, as he cracked his neck to the left, then the right. It was theater, a show for the gang around them. A signal that John Marston was going to get his, and Arthur Morgan was going to give it to him. "Because I gotta tell you, I'm about to knock it clean back off."

John glanced over at Dutch and Hosea, but they were motionless, Dutch's expression thoughtful, a silent sanction. If John were a different man, a smarter man, he might have tried to apologize. To put on an conciliatory tone and make peace.

None of them were those kind of men.

"Is that what you want, brother?" John replied, even as he weighed how badly this was going to go. John was a crack shot, but Arthur was a brawler, easily had thirty pounds on him. "You wanna tussle in the dirt like we's kids? Remind me who's the big man?"

"John—" Hosea said from behind the others, but Dutch held up a hand, his gaze never leaving his proteges.

Arthur gave no warning, didn't even square up, just swung with his left, catching John on the temple, setting his ears ringing. John managed to pull his hands up to block the next blow from the right, as the other gang members began cheering and yelling like the reprobates they all were. He swung for Arthur's unguarded ribs, getting in two quick jabs, but Arthur barely even grunted, just cracked him with another left, bringing his elbow down on the back of John's shoulder when folded in on himself. The elbow drove him down into Arthur's knee, hitting him just below the ribs and knocking the wind clean out of him, leaving John gasping.

John fell to his hands and knees, but made a valiant try at getting Arthur down with him, aiming a kick at the back of his knee. It only succeeded in getting the other knee in the small of his back, shoving him down, Arthur pinning his face into the churned-up mud around the campfire with a hand fisted in his hair. Not even to hurt him—to _humiliate_ him. He could hear Bill's laughter and Sean's taunts, Karen's cheers and Miss Grimshaw's admonishments, as Arthur ground his face into the dirt, just as John had taunted him to do. One knee was in his back and the other moved to pin down his flailing hand. John's one free hand scrambled for purchase against Arthur's trousers, but there was nothing to grab—this late at night, Arthur's gunbelt was tucked away in his caravan.

"All right, enough," Dutch said, voice carrying over the jeers, when it was clear John was well and truly pinned. "Arthur, my boy, I think that young Mr. Marston has grasped your feelings on the situation."

"How do we know that he ain't sold us out, Dutch?" Arthur growled, not even out of breath. "He could be trailing law right behind him."

John saw Dutch's preternaturally clean boots appear beside his face. "Come now, Arthur, we know John better than that." There was a soft sound—Dutch patting Arthur on the shoulder, probably, as he often did—and then Arthur shoved John's face down one more time with a noise of disgust, and stood.

"He better stay out of my way," Arthur said darkly, and then his footsteps moved away from the fire.

Dutch's intervention had ended the raucousness. When John pushed himself up onto his hands and looked around, Bill was sneering silently, Sean was frowning after Arthur, and the two new kids—Mac and the other one—were staring at him with wide eyes.

Then Hosea was on his other side, helping Dutch lever him out of the mud like he was an invalid. All in all, it had taken maybe a minute. John shook off their hands as soon as he was on his feet, glaring at the men around them.

"What?" He snapped at Bill, ready to fight again if it would cure the itching under his skin.

Bill's sneer morphed into a mean grin. "Just thinking how pretty you looked with your face in the mud, Marston. Suits you."

Dutch grabbed John's shoulder when he went to lunge. "Miss Grimshaw!" He called, as he turned John away from the fire, a friendly arm around his shoulder. "See if you can find some accommodations for our prodigal son." He turned over his shoulder to speak to Hosea, eyes sparkling. "We'll save slaughtering the fatted calf for the morning."

"Don't know how Arthur will feel about that," Hosea said dryly, but he slapped John on the shoulder as he returned to his own tent, his expression fond.

*

John had a dark purple bruise from his hairline to his cheekbone on the right side of his face in the morning, and what felt like another at the top of his left shoulder blade, but other than that, he was mostly just muddy. Miss Grimshaw clucked over his ruined travel clothes, then sent him to wash up in the pond.

One of the new kids was down there, the one whose name John didn't know, neck-deep in the water. John acknowledged him with a nod before he dunked his head, didn't notice the kid staring until he'd finished scrubbing out the dried mud.

"Just ask what you want to know," John snapped, annoyed, and the kid jumped, head bobbing under the water before he came back up, spluttering.

"Sorry, I— Dutch said we shouldn't bother you. That you needed to 'settle in'."

John rolled his eyes. "Kid, if I was made of glass, I woulda shattered already."

The kid nodded, wide-eyed. "No kidding. Mr. Morgan really walloped you."

John snorted. 'Mr. Morgan.' Christ, they were old. "He has his reasons." What those reasons were, John actually couldn't quite say. Arthur seemed to have done just fine in his absence, taken over the things that John had abandoned. Abigail even slept in his caravan now, the tent that had been hers strung up to give Arthur's lean-to the illusion of privacy.

"I've never seen Mr. Morgan brawl with someone from the camp before," the kid continued, apparently having already forgotten Dutch's instructions. "He must really hate you."

John just scrubbed the rest of the mud off his skin and left without responding, because what was there to say to that?

***

Dutch treated John like he'd never left, and after a few weeks, Sean and Bill did as well. The new kids—Mac and the other one, who was apparently Davey—had no grudge to hold against him, so they followed Dutch. Hosea seemed … not upset, but uncertain. He treated John with kid gloves, tried to _talk_ to him about why he left, what he did, why he came back. John knew that was just how Hosea was—he and Dutch both had the gift of gab, but Dutch leaned towards inspirational speeches and Hosea was more about understanding the human condition.

Pearson, Swanson, Uncle: they'd never shed blood with John, and that visceral bond wasn't there—whatever betrayal they might have felt was on behalf of others, and though Pearson treated him coolly, Swanson and Uncle didn't much seem to care that he'd been gone, or that now he was back.

The women were different, more like Hosea. Karen asked him if he was 'okay' at least once a day. Miss Grimshaw constantly nagged him like the mother he barely remembered. Mary-Beth mostly wanted to hear what he'd been doing, still starry-eyed about tales of outlaws, seeming more impressed than anything that he had been on his own for a year.

Abigail was … well, he deserved what he got from her. Three months in, she was still sleeping in Arthur's caravan, the entry pulled closed at night, and John had set his own new lean-to as far away from it as possible. He didn't want to see her braiding her hair in there each morning, didn't want to hear if there were soft, sleep noises or other things at night. She was unfailingly, icily cordial to him. Petty as fuck, though, and even though John knew she was doing all of it—winding her arm through Arthur's any time he was in camp, fussing over Arthur with food and liquor, stroking hands across Arthur's shoulders when they sat at the fire at night—to rile him, that didn't mean it didn't work. It was just as well that Arthur spent most of his time away from the camp, these days.

He suspected that Dutch had talked to Arthur, since there were no more fistfights around the campfire, and no hissing venom flung at him. Just icy fury that rivaled Abigail's, if not surpassed it, silence that spoke more loudly than any accusation. Arthur had been an older brother to him and filled the role perfectly, always insulting and poking at him. The new silence seemed to settle on John's skin like a layer of trail dust he could never wash off. John had never thought he would miss Arthur calling him a useless sack of shit, but here they were.

All that being as it was, It was a flat shock to John when, when Dutch called him over to his tent, Arthur was waiting there with him.

For a horrible, terrifying moment, John thought that Dutch had gone Hosea on them, that he was going to make John and Arthur sit and _talk_ to one another, and all things being equal, John would rather Arthur just hit him again over that.

"No need to look so worried, my boy," Dutch said expansively as he waved John to an empty stool. "This is business talk. Mr. Morgan here has a job that needs another gun."

Arthur was sitting on a canvas stool and leaning back against one of the tent posts, his hat shadowing his eyes, a cigarette dangling carelessly from his lips. He looked like a snake, his casual, sprawled laziness belying the coiling tension to strike.

"Does Mr. Morgan need a recruiter too?" John replied, ignoring the invitation to sit, instead planting his feet and crossing his arms over his chest. "Seems to me he knew where to find me."

"That so?" Arthur drawled, tilting his head up, looking at John through half-closed eyes. "Findin' you is hardly a guarantee these days, is it?"

"Well I suppose findin' you is easy," John snapped back, "Just need to look to where Abigail is simpering like a damn fool."

A smile slowly sped across Arthur's face at that, and John cursed himself for showing his hand. Arthur folded his hands behind his head, a picture of contentment, and darted his eyes out of the tent, to where Abigail was crouched doing laundry. "Abigail is a fine woman."

John hadn't realized he was lunging towards Arthur until he felt Dutch's hand in the middle of his chest. "This is exactly the problem, boys. I can't have my two best men at each other's throats."

Arthur snorted. "I ain't been near Marston's neck since I wrung it."

"Arthur," Dutch said, in the tone of a disappointed parent. For reasons John had never understood, Arthur had always been vulnerable to this tone—even now it made him scowl and drop his gaze, chastised. "I've known both of you since you were children, and your problem has always been that you're too damn similar for your own good."

John could see Arthur's jaw jut out, wanting to argue, but he stayed quiet.

"I love both you boys," Dutch continued, "and it pains me to see you two circling around each other like trashyard dogs. So you are going to ride out together, do this job, and come back alive, talking to one another, and with pockets full of money. You understand me?"

John eyed Arthur suspiciously until the older man shoved himself to his feet. "I guess you're with me then, Marston," he growled, the cigarette that had been dangling from his lips now clenched between his teeth. "Pack up, we're leaving in the morning."

John followed after him with a bounce in his step—something about seeing Arthur, the favored son, dressed down by Dutch and brought to heel made his day infinitely more pleasant. "Where we goin' then, boss?" He asked brightly, grinning in response to Arthur's scowl.

"Firnass," Arthur answered, reluctantly, "so pack warm. God know there ain't enough meat on your skinny ass to keep you from freezing."

Firnass was a mountain town the gang had passed by on the way to their current camp site in Finnegan's Pass. John hadn't been with them then, but Karen was happy to tell him that there was nothing there but snow, timber, and wolves.

"It was so cold they didn't even want to fuck," she lamented. "I got my tits out in the saloon for nuthin'."

"No coal?" John pressed. "No gold?"

"Just trees and ice, as I recall," Karen told him, "but Arthur wouldn't be going if there weren't something."

Because of course, _Arthur_ couldn't be wrong. If _Arthur_ thought there was something worth riding two days up into the mountains for, of _course_ it was true.

"Karen was wrong," is what Arthur told him as they were saddling up in the morning, "there is gold."

*

Arthur came off as a dumb man with a keen eye, and he'd be the first to tell you that was true, but he was deceptively clever about some things. The saloon in Karston, at the bottom of the mountain, had stuck him as being a little too raucous for a town that didn't even have a mine. The number of lumberjacks buying rounds with crisp dollar bills, the number of young, pretty, well-dressed whores doing a tidy business, the upstairs rooms letting for premium—it all smacked of wealth and, in particular, new, unpracticed wealth.

"So after a few more whiskeys, feller tells me that he's down from Firnass on three days leave. I ask him how the lumber business is up there, and he tells me he wouldn't know, he's paid to guard the forest, not cut it. Then he fuckin' shushes me," Arthur held a finger up in front of his lips in illustration, "and tells me its a secret." He peered at John out of the corner of his eye, smirking. "Well, you know how I feel about secrets."

Apparently, to quote Mark Twain, there was gold in them thar hills.

The rub was that the lumber company didn't own the land, just the trees. The gold in the ground and streams belonged to the state of Montana and the town of Firnass, and as it happened, the company didn't want to give the state their new windfall.

"They're squirreling it away up there somewhere," Arthur said, relaxed in the saddle despite the blistering cold, "but the number of guns they've hired? One feller ain't gonna bust in and take it."

"Where do you think they're keeping it?" John asked.

Arthur made a thoughtful noise. "Foreman's office would be the most obvious, but I doubt its there. More likely they stuck it up in a cave somewhere. Somewhere no one's likely to stumble upon."

"So we grab the foreman and have him take us." John suggested. "Get rid of him when we're done and anyone will probably think he took it."

Arthur repeated his thoughtful hum. "Reckon they must know folks'll be after it. Not sure it'll be that easy."

It wasn't.

The gold wasn't hidden in some distant cave. It was right smack dab in the middle of Firnass, in the basement of the town saloon. A saloon that was also the town's only restaurant, and was full, day and night, with armed, drunk roughnecks just looking for a reason to fight. The saloon owner was an old widow who'd seemed deeply unimpressed with them, scowling as she served them their drinks, and asking pointedly if they had any experience with lumber.

Arthur had given her an extra dollar and told her that he had experience with a lot of things. He had a soft spot for old women, and John knew that he would never agree to use her to get the gold.

The foreman was an unexpectedly young rat-faced dandy who went everywhere with an armed bodyguard. He was the obvious weak link, but he rarely left the safety of the town, and didn't socialize with the workers. If he walked into the saloon without his guard and with two strange men … well, there was no way it wouldn't be noticed.

"We'll end up killing half the town if we go in guns blazing," Arthur muttered as he sipped his overpriced whiskey, "but there ain't no back way into the cellar."

"We need a distraction," John said. "We wait until everyone's eyes are somewhere else and we can walk right in."

"Could set a fire," Arthur said, thoughtfully. "Lumber pile goes up, they'd probably all run to help."

"The old woman wouldn't, though," John pointed out, and Arthur seemed to mull over that a moment, before shrugging.

"Reckon we'll have to risk it."

Arthur sent him to start the fire. That was as expected, Arthur always preferred to be the gunner. He didn't have Hosea or Dutch's skill at improvisation and, large as he was, he wasn't especially skilled at sneaking, either. He was better off being the muscle instead of the brain. John knew that Dutch had picked up Arthur when he was around thirteen, and it occasionally passed through his mind that Dutch had conditioned Arthur to be so. After all, Dutch and Hosea hadn't needed another silver tongue, they'd needed a workhorse. Maybe they'd made themselves one.

John always felt slightly disloyal for these thoughts, but ultimately, Dutch and Hosea were a different breed to him and Arthur. He and Arthur, and even Bill and Sean, they were gunmen. They killed and robbed without a great deal of finesse. Dutch and Hosea? They were con-men, and con-men always had an angle.

Arthur had been right—the saloon cleared out the moment someone yelled 'fire', leaving only a few whores and the widow. Arthur had managed to slip into the cellar without a single eye on him. The safe held nearly ten pounds of gold ore. It went perfectly: they left Firnass with no pursuers and enough gold to keep the gang comfortable for a year or more.

It wasn't until the next night, camped on the mountain, that it went to shit.

They had apparently underestimated the the rat-faced foreman's tenacity. Arthur counted at least two dozen gunslingers with him, and possibly more spread out searching for them. They wouldn't be hard to find—they hadn't lit a fire, but the heavy snow made their horse's tracks fairly obvious. Arthur and John were in the only patch of tree cover for miles, they would definitely be spotted leaving it, and with that many guns it seemed unlikely they would all miss.

"We'll have to run for it," John said, passing the binoculars back to Arthur, "before they get any closer."

"We'd be shot before we got fifteen feet," Arthur replied. He tucked his binoculars away and then stood, walking over and pulling the saddlebag off his horse. "Reckon I can stall 'em. Get off this mountain, get the gang and come back for me."

John sprang to his feet. "What? No!"

Arthur slung his saddlebag onto John's horse. "Don't argue, Marston. They ain't gonna kill me—they want their gold."

"I'm not running off like a coward while you play hero, Morgan!"

Arthur pulled himself up onto his horse, as if this were already decided. "Running off is what you're good at, John. Play to your strengths," and then he spurred his horse, bursting into the open, snowy field.

John cursed and ducked back behind the treeline. The cold, open air allowed the voices to carry perfectly, and he heard Arthur's casual drawl as he came up on the foreman. "Evening, fellas. Quite the company you've got here."

One of the gunman yanked him down off his horse, leading him at gunpoint to the foreman, who was leaning down over the neck of his stallion.

"I believe you have something of mine," he said, and his voice was exactly what John would have guessed—educated, oily and smug.

"Way I hear it, it belongs to the state of Montana," Arthur replied, utterly casual despite he raised hands. "Maybe we should ask 'em."

"You took my gold, you and that other one—where is he, by the way?"

"Shot him," Arthur said easily. "Didn't feel like sharing. Surprised you didn't stumble over him on the way."

The foreman whispered something to the men beside him, and two of them broke off to ride back the way they had come. Two others dismounted to grab Arthur by both arms, shoving him over next to the foreman's horse. The man reached down to grab Arthur by the hair, tilting his face up.

"This doesn't have to be unpleasant," the man said. "Give me my gold, and you walk away. Neither of us want the law involved in this."

Obviously the man didn't know Arthur from Adam, so he couldn't have known that threats like that were nothing that would move him overmuch. The pistol the man pulled was also underwhelming. It wasn't until one of the hired guns put the muzzle of his shotgun against Arthur's kneecap that John, and presumably Arthur, realized that this was going to get messy.

"… if you decide to be obstinate," the man continued, "I don't know that you'll be doing any walking at all."

John launched himself onto his horse and pulled his repeater from the saddle. Fuck Arthur Morgan and his need to be the fucking hero. John might not be his biggest fan these days, but he wasn't going to sit and watch him get his ass shot and while John rabbited.

The man with the shotgun and the two men holding Arthur's arms went down in quick succession as John galloped down the hill, Arthur falling under their dead weight, tangled with the bodies. The foreman's horse, clearly unused to gun play, reared, the man frantically clutching at the stallion's neck to stay in the saddle. Arthur grabbed for the man's legs when he stumbled to his feet, dragging him from the saddle and wrapping an arm around his neck, putting him between Arthur and the gunmen.

"Goddamn it Marston, I had a plan!" He yelled without turning around.

"Your plan was about as dumb as you are!" John yelled back, reining his horse in behind Arthur. The foreman was clawing at Arthur's arm, spitting profanity, but he was skinny rat, and no match for Arthur's strength.

"For God's sake," the weaselly bastard snarled, "shoot them!"

"I wouldn't do that," Arthur replied, prodding at the side of the foreman's head with his revolver. "Don't get much pay from a dead man."

"You won't get any pay if they make off with my gold!" The man yelled in reply, right before his head exploded in a shower of gore.

"Jesus!" Arthur spat, shoving the body away as the rest of the gunslingers began opening fire.

John was already reaching down as Arthur ran for the horse, yanking the larger man up behind him, both of them firing blind as they ducked close to the horse. "Get us the hell out of here, Marston!" Arthur yelled right up against his ear, and John turned them around and spurred hard while Arthur continued to fire. Only about eight men ended up in pursuit, the others either injured or horseless. It was, John thought, a manageable number, crazy as that was. Arthur must have thought so as well, because he pressed his mouth up next to John's ear and told him to find a defensible spot.

"No way we're outrunning them with two men on the horse," he reasoned. "We shoot 'em we can get away clean."

It was, needless to say, a bloodbath, but in the end, very little of the blood was theirs.

It was once their pursuers were dead, as Arthur was gathering what he could from the bodies, that John finally exploded.

"What the fuck kind of plan was that, Morgan?" He demands. "I thought we was supposed to be working together on this! You don't get to go stick your fool neck out for me like I'm some damsel that needs protecting!"

"I ain't gonna apologize for tryin' to send you home to your son, boy." Arthur replied calmly, utterly unfazed, not even looking up from the corpse he was turning over.

"Don't pretend this was about that," John snapped back, "when Jack and Abigail spend more time with _you_ than me."

Arthur huffed out a sigh and stood, tilting his head back and starring up a the sky for a long moment, thoughtful, before turning to face John.

"You know I ain't sleeping with Abigail," he said, matter-of-fact-like, so plainly honest and out of the blue that John stopped dead, mouth hanging open like a fool.

"You— what?"

"I ain't sleeping with Abigail." Arthur repeated, slower. "She put her things in with me because she didn't want to sleep on her own after you left, and I sure as hell wasn't letting her bunk in with the fellers." He shrugged, tucking his thumbs into his gunbelt, his expression rueful. "You was right, what you said when you came back. She's your woman. Your wife. I wouldn't do that."

John would have thought this revelation would make him happy, but instead all he feels is gobsmacked. "But if she's not—"

"The fact that I'm not fucking her doesn't change the fact that she thinks you're a worthless piece of shit, John." Arthur cut him off. "Don't get it in your head that Abigail was saving herself for you or somethin'."

"So all that stuff at camp—it really was just to rile me?" John demanded, and Arthur shrugged again.

"You hurt her, so she hurt you back. Ain't the healthiest thing in the world, but I can't say as I blame her."

John felt like his head was spinning. "But _you_ , you were doing it too—'Abigail is a fine woman', you said."

"And not one word a lie," Arthur replied easily. "What, you think Abigail is the only one you hurt?"

And there it was, finally laid out plainly. Of course John knew that Arthur was angry, that he felt betrayed by John's abandonment and resented that he'd been welcomed back, but _hurt_. That was something different, ;something men like them didn't admit to; dirty things like _feelings_ and _emotions_ were only to be talked about when women pried them out of you. Arthur was the very picture of still waters running deep, but John had never fancied that those depths would show up anywhere but on the pages of Arthur's close-guarded journal.

"I didn't leave to hurt you. Any of you," John said softly, looking down, and he almost didn't see the way Arthur's face briefly twisted in some complex emotion, before smoothing out again.

"And if that mattered, maybe things would be better," Arthur responded, "but it don't and they ain't."

It was a long ride back to camp.

*

 


	2. Thicker Than

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still canon-compliant, and as such, John is dealing with some complicated emotions regarding Abigail and Jack that aren't completely heroic.
> 
> ""She'll come around," Mary-Beth told him, one night when he must have been looking particularly maudlin at the campfire. "She wouldn't be so mad if she hadn't loved you so much.""

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is told in third person limited from John's POV, and as such, there are things he doesn't know or understand, particularly about Abigail, that aren't explained. I have thoughts about them, but if I explore them it will be in a different fic.

Nothing really changed. John fully grasping what he'd done didn't change things, didn't make Abigail come back to his tent or make Arthur treat him like anything but a stranger. That was Arthur's only concession, to interact with him as if he were some raw recruit, superficial and blank. Dutch, after all, had only said they needed to speak to each other, even he didn't have the power to make Arthur forgive him.

He did confront Abigail, the next time he saw her pointedly looking-not-looking at him while she wrapped both her arms around one of Arthur's.

"You can knock that off any time you want," John told her once he got her alone. "Arthur already told me it ain't like that with you two."

Abigail looked a bit embarrassed, but only for a moment. She quickly tilted her chin up in defiance, scowling. "Well its not because I said no," she snapped. "He could have me any time he wanted. I would ride that man into the ground. _Happily_."

For some reason—giddiness, or maybe seeing this most blatant attempt to hurt him clearly for what it was—John found this reply _hilarious._ 'Ride him into the ground', dear _Christ,_ as if Abigail even spoke like that. As if this was at all about her wanting Arthur, and not about punishing John.

Abigail walked away in a huff when he couldn't contain his laughter, but she also stopped trying to act like Arthur's lover. John wasn't the only one that noticed, the way she had been behaving or that she'd stopped, and Miss Grimshaw asked him a few days later if he would like a new tent. A bigger one. The implication was clear, but even if Abigail was willing to come back, John couldn't imagine sleeping next to her right now, all her anger and hurt still boiling under the surface.

Jack was easier. The boy was only just starting to talk, and he didn't remember John leaving, so he didn't know to be suspicious of his return. To him, John was just another man among the the many, and he was no more wary of John than of Mac or Bill. Winning Jack's affection was often as easy as slipping him a piece of candy or a blank piece of paper to scribble on.

"She'll come around," Mary-Beth told him, one night when he must have been looking particularly maudlin at the campfire. "She wouldn't be so mad if she hadn't loved you so much."

As if the amount of the anger was a reflection of the amount of affection. I was a nice thought, which was why John didn't believe it for a second. Not until Arthur said the same, anyway.

"That woman loves you," he snapped at John after he and Abigail had quarreled by the campfire again. "God knows you don't deserve it and she damn well doesn't want to any more, but it ain't like a candle you can blow out. I'd be mad too, being in love with an asshole like you. So cut her a damn break."

You _are_ mad, John didn't say. Does that me _you_ still love me, he didn't ask. Even if he was ready to hear the answer, how would you ask a question like that of a man like Arthur Morgan?

*

Arthur and Dutch rode out in late April and returned with four hundred dollars and Matilda Mae Jackson. She told the men to call her Tilly and went to bed with Mac when he asked, her attitude unenthusiastic but not unwilling. No one in the camp would have made anything of it, had she said no, but at some point in her life someone had taught Tilly Jackson that it was easier to go on your own terms than risk refusing. It wasn't exactly an uncommon attitude for a woman living outside the law. Heaven knew that Abigail had rarely refused when she was first brought to the camp, and even Mary-Beth had slept with Dutch a few times during her first month, something John usually tried hard not to think about.

"I don't mind it," she told Karen at the campfire in the morning. "Boys like that one? Five minutes of grunting and then straight asleep. I didn't even take off my stockings."

She slotted in well to the gang, a hard worker, and a quick learner when Dutch set to teaching her to read. Arthur and John were the only others that learned to read later in life, so it became normal for her to pin them down when they were at camp, eager for tutoring. Arthur had helped John learn to read once, too, and seemed to take some pride in reenacting the endeavor. He'd always had more patience for the ladies at camp than they fellers, anyway.

"He's very sweet," John overheard Tilly telling Mary-Beth. "I just hope that, when he asks me to bed, we don't got to do it out in the open on that cot of his."

Mary-Beth chortled at that. "Arthur? Arthur isn't gonna take you to bed, Tilly."

For all that she hadn't sounded particularly keen on the idea, Tilly's expression turned affronted. "Why not? Don't he like colored girls?"

"Arthur likes _women_ , not girls." Mary-Beth replied. "How old are you, nineteen? Far as he's concerned, you're as much a child as Jack."

Tilly huffed, as if insulted. "Most men, when they have a kid, it makes them want to relive their wild youth, don't it?"

The group around her froze. She was visibly taken aback by the sudden awkward silence, peering between the faces, wide-eyed, aware she had said something wrong and utterly confused as to what it could be.

"Arthur isn't Jack's father," Abigail said, her voice tight with something that wasn't anger, but more like sorrow, "John is."

Abigail had always insisted this was case, but this was the first time since his return he had heard her say it out loud. It was impossible to really know, of course, no matter what Abigail said about women's intuition, and he half thought that maybe she was trying to remove him from Jack's life, that she was going to name someone else, maybe even Arthur, the real father.

Saying it out loud seemed to have knocked something loose in Abigail—she hefted the boy up on her hip and brought him over to John right then. "Jack, remember how I told you about your Pa? That's John. John is your Pa."

The little two-year-old peered at John for a long moment, thumb in his mouth, and even Dutch's keen perusal after he'd saved John years ago hadn't felt at heavy as the small boy's assessment. Then Jack leaned forward in Abigail's arms and smacked his spit-wet hand right onto John's cheek. "'Kay," he agreed, "Pa."

John didn't pretend to understand women in general or Abigail in particular, so he didn't truly understand why this led to Abigail sobbing brokenly in his arms, or why it was followed by Abigail's bedroll appearing next to his on the far side of camp. He wanted to ask, in case he needed to recreate whatever queer magic he had apparently accomplished, but the whole thing still felt fragile, a house of cards ready to collapse with the addition of too much weight. Abigail wasn't furious any longer but she was still wary of him, and he reckoned he couldn't blame her. She, of all of them here, had the most to lose.

It wasn't until the next day, when he saw Arthur pulling down the fabric draped around his caravan, Abigail's old tent, that he felt like he had stolen something.

Arthur had a son, once. John had never met him. Him and his mother had lived on their own, and both had been killed before Abigail had even joined the gang. Arthur never spoke of him, but just then, for the first time in a long while, John wondered what Arthur had been like as a father. He'd been younger, then, more rash and hotheaded—more like John himself, to be honest. The whole mess was a study in parallels, really, and maybe it was like Dutch had said—they were too alike. After all, Arthur had left _his_ son, too.

That day he'd walked back into camp he'd thought Arthur had stolen his family, and now they'd been stolen back. And the fact of it was that was stupid all the way 'round, because they were still Arthur's family, and anyway, he didn't own Abigail and Jack any more than Dutch owned him and Arthur. John, Abigail, Arthur, they were all, in theory, grown folk, and they could all choose for themselves where to cast their lots, even if it was on a bad bet like John.

And Abigail had, she'd had more than a year to think better of it and still settled for John. He couldn't quite tamp down one the giddiness of his sudden victory, his mood bubbling over in a way it hadn't in months, years, since maybe when he was a kid and joys were simple and uncomplicated.

"Tilly reckons you wanna take her to bed," he told Arthur the next day, startling the other man badly enough that he dropped the razor in his hands He turned, peering over his shoulder at John's cheeky smile, squinting at him like he'd never seen him before.

"What did you say?"

"You should take her to a nice hotel if you do, she said she wouldn't want to do it in your cot with the whole camp watching."

"The hell are you on about, Marston?" Arthur rasped, but apparently John's good humor was infectious even to Arthur, and the corner of his mouth was curling up.

"Just catching you up on the chatter around the campfire, old man," John told him, leaning his shoulder against one of the posts.

Arthur rolled his eyes and bent over to pick up his razor, wiping it clean against his trousers. "Because when I think 'who has their ear to the ground?' the first name that comes to mind is 'John Marston'."

"It should, my ear's always to the ground. I ain't got a fancy cot."

Its probably the most civil conversation they've had since he returned. The next time Tilly came to Arthur for reading practice he very obligingly wrote out for her, 'no thank you, Arthur, not in your cot,' all small simple words for her to sound out sitting at the campfire. He flat out guffawed when she walloped him on the shoulder after.

Within the next two weeks Jack had whooping cough and Arthur was nearly hanged. Their fucking lives.

*

"He _needs_ medicine," Abigail told Dutch, on the third day of Jack's loud, chest-deep coughing. " _Proper_ medicine, from a proper doctor." Her, John, Dutch, and Hosea were all clustered around the boy, but that didn't mean the rest of the camp wasn't listening it. No one could have missed the coughing, it echoed through the entire camp like the bark of a dog. Miss Grimshaw, usually so unflappable, had taken to crossing herself after every bout, muttering something about two younger brothers lost to cholera.

"We will do everything in our power to help the boy, Abigail," Dutch assured her, "but there nothing like a proper doctor around here."

"What about that feller in Womack?" Hosea said thoughtfully. "He had a full surgery."

"We cleaned out their bank not nine months ago," Dutch pointed out, "and in any case, that's at least four day's ride away."

"Reckon you could make it in three," Arthur said from behind them, "but it'd be hard riding, don't know how the boy would fare."

"Y'all ain't thinking right," Karen put in suddenly, "talkin' about four days on horseback like you're going to be running a job." When all four menfolk stared at her blankly, she rolled her eyes. "There's a _train_ , you fools. Goes from Karston to Womack in somethin' like a day."

Trains, of course, were generally to be avoided unless you were robbing 'em—there were too many people looking at your face, too predictable a route, too reliant on schedule. Safer to be on horseback, where you could get off the road to avoid the law, could outrun pursuers, could stash loot and leave to return for it.

But Karen was right—there was no loot here and, hopefully, no law. There was only Jack, looking progressively more blue around the lips, fitting weakly.

Abigail grabbed John's collar and yanked the much larger man close like a misbehaving boy. "I am getting on that train, John Marston. I don't care if I have to collect your bounty to do it."

John gripped her hand but didn't pull it off. "I ain't arguing, Abigail. We're going."

"Right," Dutch said, "Hosea. Take what you need from the camp funds and escort Mr. and Mrs. Marston to the train station. Miss Grimshaw, you go with them, help with the boy." He clapped John on the shoulder. "You weren't with us in Womack, John, they won't know your face. Arthur, you and I will ride out and meet them in town once we get some money. A proper doctor is going to cost."

"If you're going to be robbin', you need more than you and Arthur," Sean protested. "I can—"

"Sean," Dutch cut him off, "you lot need to stay here and look after the women. We do not have the time to be quiet about this, and we do not need the law raining down on our heads. Arthur and I will move faster on our own."

*

The train ride was surreal. John watched Miss Grimshaw spin a tale to the station master about her dear, sweet niece and her poor, sick boy that got them a private cabin on the train, a uniformed porter escorting them, offering to bring them their fucking dinner so as not to disturb the 'wee lad'. Was this how the folk they robbed lived? John's hands instinctively itched for a pistol.

Womack was a bright, clean little town, small but neat as a pin. It was just as well that Miss Grimshaw had given them fancy clothes (costumes, John thought) to wear, they would have been terribly out of place in their usual dusted travel wear. As it was, the doctor still took nearly all the cash Hosea had given them as pre-payment, but agreed that any remaining balance could be paid when their 'Uncle' came to town with more.

"Guess we're camping out," John muttered, as he looked at the pile of coins remaining.

"You're camping out," Abigail replied sharply, from where she was seated next to the fancy physician's chair, "I ain't leaving."

Abigail had only moved her bedroll back by his maybe a week ago, her breathing by his ear a novelty and a comfort, and right now, all John wanted was to get some goddamn sleep with his wife beside him. "Abigail, we're both beat. The doctor has him now, Miss Grimshaw can--"

Abigail bared her teeth at him in a snarl. "I. Ain't. Leaving."

"Of course you aren't, dear." Miss Grimshaw said, patting Abigail's shoulder with a gentleness John had never seen from her, not even when he was a boy. "John and I won't have to camp out, I'll take care of it."

Sometimes John forgot that Susan Grimshaw had been something of a con artist herself in the day, a black-haired, black-eyed beauty that had wrapped men, including Dutch, around her finger. She leaned up against the desk of the hotel in Womack, breasts all but spilling out onto the counter, and almost had the manager in tears with her tale: her nephew's poor, sick son, his dear devoted wife sitting at the child's side, her own darling husband and son coming as fast as they could from their prospect in Nevada, and oh, that was where they had come from, all the way from Virginia City, didn't he know that Womack had one of the best doctors in the West, oh yes, it was true—

Listening to it all made John's head spin, but they got the room on credit. Everything was on credit, all relying on money Dutch and Arthur were to deliver.

It wasn't something John could adjust to, the waiting. He was an gunslinger, he didn't sit and wait for his boss to pay him: when he needed money he went and he got it from someone who had more than their share. That was what John knew how to _do_ , he didn't know how to comfort a woman that feared she was losing her son, he didn't know how to play the hard-working, careworn husband and devoted nephew, he didn't know how to ingratiate himself with townsfolk that had probably never shed blood in their life, and would lynch him if they knew who he really was.

Terribly, guiltily, even while looking at Jack in the hospital cot, Abigail exhausted beside him, what he most wanted to do was _leave_. Get a horse and ride out of town, rob someone or steal something so that he could feel as if he were doing something _useful_.

Dutch arrived three days after them, alone.

He looked impeccable as always, if a bit harried, and fell right into his assigned role when Miss Grimshaw embraced him in the middle of the main street. The whole town knew their cover story now, and Dutch certainly could pass for a rich prospector.

"Five hundred," Dutch told Miss Grimshaw as he tucked the envelope into her pocket. "What does the doctor say?"

She tucked her arm through his and turned them towards the doctor's office—he had already been making noises about his payment, so there was no need to wait. "He says Jack is a strong boy, and," her lip curled up at this, "that treatment is very expensive."

Dutch's lips thinned even as he patted the hand Miss Grimshaw had tucked into his elbow. "There's more money if we need it, but I'll have to go back for it."

"Where's Arthur?" John demanded, on Dutch's other side, and Dutch shot him a short, strange look, almost a warning.

"You need to worry about your son, John."

It was not a comforting response. "I'll worry about whatever I damn well please. Where's Arthur?"

Dutch clapped his free hand on John's shoulder, a gesture that was not as reassuring as he seemed to assume. "I would never allow anything to happen to Arthur," he said, another non-answer that made John's clench his fists. "You need to be here for your son."

"You left him somewhere," John accused, and Dutch's expression turned resigned.

"We got separated. I had hoped he might meet me here." He met John's eyes with absolute sincerity. "Once we sort out this doctor I am turning right around to find him."

John cursed. "I'm coming with you."

"You damn well are _not_ ," Ditch snapped at him,

"He'd come for me," John argued, and Dutch gave a frustrated huff.

"Of course he would, but that is hardly the point. Arthur would want the same as I do—for you to look after your family."

"Arthur's part of my family," John shot back, but even to his own ears he sounded like a petulant child, and Dutch's gaze turned soft, almost affectionate, like the father he styled himself as.

"You can't run away from this, son," Dutch said, because of course knew what was going on in John's head better than the man himself. He always had. "Abigail needs you. Jack needs you."

John's needs no longer seemed to factor in—then again, they rarely had.

"Yeah, okay," John said, looking down at his feet like a scolded child. "You're right."

Dutch patted his shoulder one more time before continuing on with Miss Grimshaw. "You needn't worry, son. Nothing will happen to Arthur. That boy could fall into a river and come out of it with pockets full of gold."

*

After a short visit with Abigail and Jack, Dutch turned right back around the way he came. He was gone for five days, nearly long enough to have ridden to their camp and back, and by the end, John was frantic with the wait, the motionlessness of it. He hadn't dared tell Abigail that Arthur might be in trouble, she was fond of Arthur and didn't need the added worry, but the result was that she assumed his frenetic mood was impatience with Jack's recovery, and it didn't endear him to her overmuch.

Jack was well on the mend when Dutch finally reappeared, Arthur beside him, and it was such an intense relief, because it at least felt like it was over. Jack was fine, Arthur was fine, the law seemed oblivious to the wanted men in their town, and Abigail was even sleeping in the hotel at night, the bags under her eyes diminished and color returning to her cheeks. She'd hugged Dutch and Arthur tightly, right in the middle of the street, overjoyed with Jack's health. Dutch accepted his with amused good grace, Arthur, with a pained grunt and and awkward pat on the back. John knew that it wasn't the affection that made Arthur uncomfortable, but the gratitude—Arthur was dutiful like a soldier, and never seemed to desire thanks.

"Well ain't you fancy," Arthur drawled when John showed him the second room they had rented, Miss Grimshaw's up until now. His voice was more hoarse than usual and between that, the wince when Abigail hugged him, and the solicitous way Dutch had sent him off to 'rest', John's suspicions were more like certainty.

"What happened to you?" He asked, but when Arthur merely shrugged he reached over and grasped the kerchief around Arthur's neck, the one he almost never wore, pulling it down.

Arthur flinched away, but not fast enough. The bruising on his throat was at least a day or two old, but still dark purple-black, embedded deeply enough that John could make out the weave of the rope in the markings.

"Jesus _Christ_ , Arthur!" He snapped, immediately reaching out again. Arthur knocked his hand away without real violence, looking aggrieved, and pulled the kerchief off on his own, revealing the distinctive inverted 'V' pattern of a hanging. John had rarely seen it on a living body.

"Reckon its fairly obvious what happened to me," he rasped, expression and posture utterly casual.

It couldn't have been the law, Arthur would be dead if it were—gallows hanging broke the neck, there was no surviving that. He'd been _lynched_. That meant there would have been no trial, no delay, no chance of a prison rescue—the bruising meant Dutch must have found Arthur _strung up from a fucking tree_.

John had almost been hanged himself, once. He'd only been thirteen, no options but those outside the law, and half a dozen people twice his age had been ready to run him up a tree over cattle. Dutch had saved John, as well, but he hadn't ever felt the rope pull tight around his neck, hadn't had to gasp for air before his rescue.

"Christ," John said again, more softly. "This was because—"

"This was because of shit luck." Arthur cut him off. "The boy got sick. None of us made him that way. As for this," he gestured at his neck, "that's just what happens when you do what we do. You should know that, 's how we found you."

John looked at the ground, feeling wrung out by the past weeks and uncomfortably emotional. "I should have come after you," he muttered. He heard Arthur sigh.

"You were with your family," Arthur replied. "That's as it should be."

John didn't say anything, because this was the whole damn problem—he felt like he didn't know what family meant anymore. Dutch, Arthur and Hosea had been his family longer than anyone else, longer then his own blood folks, but suddenly Abigail has a baby and _that_ is family, that's what family has _always_ been, as if he were a fool to have thought otherwise.

Arthur sighed again, clearly just as uncomfortable with John's regret as he was with Abigail's gratitude.

"Look, if this— you got nothing to prove to me, okay? Whatever you're moping about, forget it. _You did good_."

John looked up, shocked, because he couldn't recall the last time he'd gotten a word of praise from Arthur Morgan—since before he'd left, certainly, and probably even since before then. Coddling was for children, and they weren't children; he didn't need Arthur or Dutch to pat him on the head grant him their approval. Even so ...

Well. Even so.

Arthur was scowling as he tied the kerchief back around his bruised throat, hiding the evidence of his misadventures. "Now if you're done feeling sorry for yourself," he said, "get out. Reckon it might be nice to sleep in a bed for once, even if I do got a 'fancy cot'."

John tried to chuckle at that, as it was clearly the intention, but as he walked back to the doctor's office to join Abigail, he mostly felt cored out and hollow inside.

There had been a time when things were simple. It was a bitter and _evil_ feeling, but sometimes when he looked at Jack, he longed for those times back.

 


End file.
